Santa Rosa teen singing John Mayer song goes viral, catches attention of Grammy winner

In the YouTube video, it's a sunny April day outside the bustling Anaheim Convention Center. A man in a red shirt holding a guitar stands next to a chalkboard sign that reads “sing with me for free.”

Ryan Woodard, 16, a Montgomery High School senior from Santa Rosa with autism, approaches.

He asks to sing “Gravity” by John Mayer, his favorite artist. Ryan had traveled to Los Angeles to see Mayer live at the Kia Forum in Inglewood before heading to the 2023 NAMM Show in Anaheim.

Ryan begins to sing and his voice ― smooth, free-flowing, confident, almost exactly like Mayer himself ― seems to surprise people passing by.

His mom, Laura Woodard, cheers proudly from the side, reveling in the moment.

Afterward, the man in red asks him “So now that you sang, how do you feel?”

“Great,” Ryan says, a huge smile on his face.

The moment was caught in a YouTube video uploaded by the man in the red shirt, Reggie Guillaume, a solo musician and YouTuber who goes by his username Guitaro 5000.

“I was was very much pleased by playing with him when we played together, it just felt really natural and just felt free,” Guillaume said in an interview with the Press Democrat. “And it was fun.”

Since it was uploaded three months ago, the video has amassed more than 6.5 million views. One of those was from a certain Grammy Award winner himself.

Ryan’s story

“When I ask total strangers to sing, part of the fun of it is learning more about who they are,” Guillaume says in his YouTube video. “What you’ll see here is me meeting Ryan for the first time. However, it was our conversation after this moment that I learned something very interesting about him.”

What he learned is that Ryan was diagnosed with autism at age 3 and was nonverbal until age 10, meaning he talked very little. Around 25 to 30% of people diagnosed with autism are considered nonverbal.

When he was a kid, Ryan’s parents, Travis and Laura Woodard, tried everything they could to get their son engaged in something. Nothing really stuck. For a while, Ryan’s main interest was trains, something many kids with autism find visually stimulating.

Around age 8, Ryan began to listen to The Beatles obsessively for about a year. Then it was Michael Jackson.

“What helped me a lot was listening to songs and listening to lyrics and that's how music made me feel more verbal and made me feel more confident,” Ryan said.

Around age 9, Ryan took off with the video games Guitar Hero and Rocksmith. He got better and better, so his parents enrolled him in guitar lessons, hoping this would be his launching point.

It was. He learned hundreds of songs in a matter of months. His ability to speak also improved and by age 10 he was no longer considered nonverbal, though he still struggles to communicate sometimes.

Since then, Ryan has learned how to play seven instruments: guitar, bass, keyboard, drums, ukulele, harmonica and mandolin. Though he considers guitar his strongest, his vocal abilities are steadily improving and gaining more attention.

Guillaume said he chose to focus the YouTube video on Ryan’s journey becoming verbal, “but what really stood out to me was really his parents dedication to what he loves to do.”

His dad, Travis, took it upon himself to learn professional sound and lighting to support his son’s music gigs, starting his own sound company Ryan Woodard Rocks Productions. His parents also built Ryan his own home music studio to practice in.

It began to pay off. In 2018, Ryan was invited onstage to jam with blues legend Buddy Guy at Santa Rosa’s Luther Burbank Center, a spontaneous performance that received local attention.

So far this year, Ryan has now done more than 60 gigs between solo performances, the Ryan Woodard Band and the Santa Rosa School of Rock’s House Band. He is now touring the country with the School of Rock’s AllStars, a selected group of high-level students.

Guillame said he’s seen some parents lose hope when their kids are nonverbal. “They just never really prepared for that, and you’re never truly prepared for parenthood, because it's always gonna be a surprise anyway, right?”

Ryan’s great resolve, strength and confidence helped him to continue to work on speaking and his music, Guillame said. “But also his parents pushed through and they believed in him, and now he can talk and he can sing, he can play and it's amazing.”

Travis Woodard says listening, learning and playing music occupies almost every minute of Ryan’s life, from morning to late night and weekends.

“He works every day at it, and doesn't do anything else,” Woodard said. “He doesn't play video games. He doesn't watch TV. He listens to music and he plays music. There's nothing else he does.”

“I never get tired of it,” Ryan said.

A not-so-mysterious package

About two months after Ryan’s April performance, a large package arrived on the Woodard family’s doorsteps.

Printed onto the cardboard box in green is “C.F. Martin & Company,” an American guitar manufacturer that John Mayer has worked closely with for two decades as their signature artist.

His mom caught Ryan’s reaction in a video she uploaded to TikTok.

“Oh my gosh,” Ryan says as his eyes widen, realizing what the package is. ”It’s a guitar.“

He carefully opens the case, revealing a yellow acoustic guitar.

He picks up the instrument and there’s a note. His mom squeals and Ryan shouts “oh, oh my gosh” even louder this time.

The note reads: “Ryan- You sound great! Here’s a little something to help you keep expressing yourself! Your friend, John.”

In a stunned, happy state, Ryan immediately begins to tune the guitar and strum Mayer’s song "Heart of Life.“

“That letter meant a lot to me in my life,” Ryan told The Press Democrat, “because he’s my influence for songwriting.”

Ryan has written five original songs for his first EP, which he plans to release this winter.

One of his songs “Heartbreak Fighting” is about Jayden Pienta, the 16-year-old Montgomery High student who died in an on-campus stabbing last March, and someone who was always kind to Ryan. Another song, “Going Once, Going Twice,“ is about how the world would be a better place if people treated each other with kindness and respect.

The 16 year-old has big dreams.

He wants to work with other famous artists.

He wants to win a big award for one of his songs.

Most of all, Ryan wants to be an advocate for kids with disabilities.

One of those goals has already been accomplished. Among thousands of comments on videos of Ryan’s impromptu performance, many people say his story touched them deeply. Parents with nonverbal children commented that it’s given them hope.

“It’s really amazing the kind of reach the video had,” Guillaume said. “We told the story of a kid going from verbal and nonverbal and the way music was his path, but there was so much more to it, because there's so many people who have someone in their life with a challenge they’ve face.”

As they see Ryan's parents who were there the whole time supporting him and helping him, and the way his mom hugged him at the end, they see an example of real love and real support, and it makes them feel validated.”

You can reach Staff Writer Alana Minkler at 707-526-8531 or alana.minkler@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @alana_minkler.